Your country has been devastated, and your cities have been burned to the ground. While you look on, foreigners take over your land and bring everything to ruin.

If the LORD Almighty had not let some of the people survive, Jerusalem would have been totally destroyed, just as Sodom and Gomorrah were.

I will let it be overgrown with weeds. I will not trim the vines or hoe the ground; instead, I will let briers and thorns cover it. I will even forbid the clouds to let rain fall on it."

I asked, "How long will it be like this, Lord?" He answered, "Until the cities are ruined and empty---until the houses are uninhabited---until the land itself is a desolate wasteland.

I will send the people far away and make the whole land desolate.

"The LORD is going to bring on you, on your people, and on the whole royal family, days of trouble worse than any that have come since the kingdom of Israel separated from Judah---he is going to bring the king of Assyria.

They will swarm in the rugged valleys and in the caves in the rocks, and they will cover every thorn bush and every pasture.

"When that time comes, even if a farmer has been able to save only one young cow and two goats,

"When that time comes, the fine vineyards, each with a thousand vines and each worth a thousand pieces of silver, will be overgrown with thorn bushes and briers.

All the hills where crops were once planted will be so overgrown with thorns that no one will go there. It will be a place where cattle and sheep graze."

The fortified city lies in ruins. It is deserted like an empty wilderness. It has become a pasture for cattle, where they can rest and graze.

and thorn bushes and briers are growing on my people's land. Weep for all the houses where people were happy and for the city that was full of life.

Even the palace will be abandoned and the capital city totally deserted. Homes and the forts that guarded them will be in ruins forever. Wild donkeys will roam there, and sheep will find pasture there.

I will destroy the hills and mountains and dry up the grass and trees. I will turn the river valleys into deserts and dry up the pools of water.

Like a lion coming from its hiding place, a destroyer of nations has set out. He is coming to destroy Judah. The cities of Judah will be left in ruins, and no one will live in them.

Everyone from the nations around you who passes by will sneer at you and keep their distance.

All the cities of Israel will be destroyed, so that all their altars and their idols will be smashed to pieces, their incense altars will be shattered, and everything they made will disappear.

Cities that are now full of people will be destroyed, and the country will be made a wilderness. Then they will know that I am the LORD."

Now set the empty bronze pot on the coals and let it get red-hot. Then the pot will be ritually pure again after the corrosion is burned off,

The Sovereign LORD says, "I will make you so desolate that the whole world will rejoice at your downfall,

Nineveh is destroyed, deserted, desolate! Hearts melt with fear; knees tremble, strength is gone; faces grow pale.

Some will be killed by the sword, and others will be taken as prisoners to all countries; and the heathen will trample over Jerusalem until their time is up.

They turn everything upside down. Which is more important, the potter or the clay? Can something you have made say, "You didn't make me"? Or can it say, "You don't know what you are doing"?

I will punish Jerusalem as I did Samaria, as I did King Ahab of Israel and his descendants. I will wipe Jerusalem clean of its people, as clean as a plate that has been wiped and turned upside down.

He protects the strangers who live in our land; he helps widows and orphans, but takes the wicked to their ruin.

But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city authorities and shouted, "These men have caused trouble everywhere! Now they have come to our city,

The LORD will scatter you among other nations, where only a few of you will survive.

"The LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve gods made of wood and stone, gods that neither you nor your ancestors have ever worshiped before.

I would have destroyed them completely, so that no one would remember them.

Remember now what you told Moses: 'If you people of Israel are unfaithful to me, I will scatter you among the other nations.

I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors have heard about, and I will send armies against them until I have completely destroyed them."

Then Johanan said privately to him, "Let me go and kill Ishmael, and no one will know who did it. Why should he be allowed to murder you? That would cause all the Jews who have gathered around you to be scattered, and it would bring disaster on all the people who are left in Judah."

The LORD says, "The people of Israel are like sheep, chased and scattered by lions. First, they were attacked by the emperor of Assyria, and then King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia gnawed on their bones.

Burn up a third of it in the city when the siege is over. Take another third and chop it up with your sword as you move around outside the city. Scatter the remaining third to the winds, and I will pursue it with my sword.

The LORD Almighty says, "Wake up, sword, and attack the shepherd who works for me! Kill him, and the sheep will be scattered. I will attack my people

And I will test the third that survives and will purify them as silver is purified by fire. I will test them as gold is tested. Then they will pray to me, and I will answer them. I will tell them that they are my people, and they will confess that I am their God."

From James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ: Greetings to all God's people scattered over the whole world.